Prepare to Meet the Needs of the Growing Population of Emerging Bilinguals

A recent study by the U.S. Department of Education found that nearly 11 million children between the ages of five and seventeen—roughly 20 percent of the school-age population—speak a language other than English at home. This suggests not only a strong career opportunity for teachers of multicultural classrooms, but also a responsibility for teachers to enhance the performance of schools with growing language diversity.

Our programs prepare teachers to better meet the needs of students in grades 1-6 and 5-12 by combining hands-on experience with the most current technologies and proven, research-based strategies to help ELL/ESL students make significant performance gains. In addition, our faculty are dedicated to their mission of improving access to learning for all ELL students.

Sample Course

Essential Linguistics: What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Language

This course takes a practical approach to the study of linguistics and English as a new language with implications for teaching ESL, reading, writing, spelling, phonics, and grammar in monolingual or multilingual contexts. The basic nature of language, first language acquisition, language variation, language change, and the relations of language to society and culture are explored.

The course focuses on the development of linguistic foundational knowledge elements such as phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics that informs planning for teaching first or second language. Structural and semantic differences between the student's first and English as a new language are examined and used in planning for learning.

"Imagine you are an eight-year-old child whose family is newly arrived in the United States and enrolled in a public school where only English is spoken... Six months later, your teacher thinks you may have a disability and refers you to special education. He does not know you are able to read well but in your native language..." Read the article »

Meet the Program Director

TESOL/ELL programs are directed by Solange de Azambuja Lira, whose focus
is to educate bilingual learners and how to teach English as a new
language while maintaining and developing the learner's first language.
She is a native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese and is proficient in
Spanish and French. Learn more »